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Tuesday, 28 August 2012

Simplicity trumps complexity

Some inspirational articles and stories about how and why you should strive for simplicity with your website, resisting the urge to add more content and more links. Learn how to steer your managers and committees rather than trying to please everyone all the time.

An article by higher education marketing consultant Mark Klawitter - "Your .edu site is too complicated" - was well circulated earlier in the year. He's writing for the USHE web community, but his observations and advice hold good for the UK too.

And a couple of stories which illustrate this point. One from the business owner's perspective, one from the customer.

In the first, UX consultant Gareth Dunlop tells the story of three CEOs meeting on the golf course and discussing website redesigns. The key message being - How do you measure the effectiveness of your website? Will a makeover make it more effective?

In the second, customer experience consultant Sheridan Orr tells the story of trying to buy her son a new computer in a hurry, when she didn't really know what she needed. The message here being - prioritise the content and structure according to customer requirements rather than product info.